Who are we when our self-identifiers no longer fit?
I grapple with this issue after being out of my normal work routine for two weeks. If I am not the artist in her studio painting, who am I?
Of course, I could be the artist on vacation or the artist pursuing other interests.
I think, as I’ve gotten older, being able to identify myself as an artist has become even more important to me—to my ego, that is. If I’m not somebody, I’ll be swallowed up in the vast ocean of aging, retired nobodies.
As I was hanging an exhibit last week with my daughter and granddaughter at the Lansing Library, a couple of the library patrons complimented the paintings. I quickly announced that I was the artist, even though no one had asked.
Heaven forbid people should think that my daughter or granddaughter made the art—that I was just a helper—even though they were doing the heavy lifting. When one patron said, “I can see those two in my living room,” I said, “Great, they’re all for sale.”
But I had a weird feeling at the time. I knew I was panicky about not being recognized as the artist.
I’ve been trying to put my life together, to find some new shape for it, since Adrian died two years ago last May.
I used to be one of two.
I used to find my identity reconfirmed daily by Adrian, who always wanted to know what was happening in my art world—what I was working on, how the business end was going, what my plans were. He was my biggest fan.
We were not a couple that spent all our time together. He had his interests and I had mine. But we shared it all in talk at the end of the day. We were always rooting for each other.
During the last, sickest months of Adrian’s life, I was working hard on a large commission for six paintings. I grabbed whatever spare moments there were to work.
Painting is what kept me moored then, and I leaned on it even more after Adrian died. Going to the studio, photographing paintings, writing my art blogs—it all kept me centered and sane.
Or did it?
Who am I if I am not TAETZSCH—ABSTRACT ARTIST?
